MIAMI — The first hurricane of this year’s Atlantic season was gaining strength far off in the ocean Monday, while weaker storms threatened the Dominican Republic and Haiti with heavy rains and drenched the Florida Panhandle.
Hurricane Bill was expected to become a major hurricane in the next few days, with winds topping 110 mph as it moved on a track expected to be near Bermuda by the end of the week.
In the Caribbean Sea, forecasters said tropical depression Ana was weakening, but its heavy rains could threaten poverty-stricken Haiti, which was devastated by multiple storms last year.
It was too soon to tell whether Bill would threaten the East Coast of the U.S., said John Cangialosi, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center.
“The system is certainly large and eventually will be a powerful hurricane,” Cangialosi said. But colder waters and wind shear could weaken it as it heads farther north.
The cluster of three named Atlantic storms after two months with none was no indication of what the rest of the season could bring, forecasters said. The season’s peak is mid-September.
In Puerto Rico, rain from Ana flooded highways in the capital, San Juan, and three schools closed as a precaution in the northern coastal city of Arecibo. The U.S. territory was expecting 2 to 4 inches of rain.
Along the Florida Panhandle, Tropical Storm Claudette quickly weakened after it made landfall at Fort Walton Beach and was downgraded to a tropical depression with winds of about 30 miles per hour.
The storm wasn’t expected to cause significant flooding or wind damage as it moved northwest into Alabama and Mississippi.
A man in his mid-20s died after being pulled from surf as Claudette approached Sunday. In Bay County, authorities searched for another man whose boat ran aground Sunday night, though they believe he eventually made it ashore. Neither man’s identity was released.
After the storm passed east of Pensacola Beach on Monday morning, joggers and tourists seeking sea shells dotted the beach.
Far out in the Pacific, Hurricane Guillermo weakened to a tropical storm with maximum sustained winds near 60 mph. Guillermo was centered about 695 miles east of Hilo, Hawaii, and moving west-northwest.
